CV

Contact Information

Name Cristian C. Beltran-Hernandez
Professional Title Senior Researcher
Languages English (Advanced), Japanese (Conversational), Spanish (Native)
Location Osaka, Japan

Experience

  • 2024 - Present

    Osaka, Japan

    Senior Researcher
    OMRON SINIC X Corporation
    Leading research on robot learning of contact-rich manipulation for automation of industrial assembly task and every day tasks.
  • 2023 - 2024

    Osaka, Japan

    Research Engineer
    OMRON SINIC X Corporation
    Leading research on robot learning of contact-rich manipulation from cooking robots to assembly automation.
  • 2022 - 2023

    Osaka, Japan

    Visiting Researcher
    OMRON SINIC X Corporation
    Research on contact-rich robot manipulation for a cooking robot; learning to slice food.
  • 2021 - 2022

    Osaka, Japan

    Participant
    Google Summer of Code & MoveIt
    Worked with the open-source organization MoveIt to develop a Simultaneous Trajectory Execution module for the popular motion planner MoveIt.
  • 2021 - 2022

    Osaka, Japan

    Research Intern
    OMRON SINIC X Corporation
    Research on robot manipulation for a cooking robot (part-time Oct 2021–Sep 2022). Full-time Mar–Sep 2021; implementation of a ROS-based autonomous robotic system for industrial assembly and motion controllers on MoveIt. System showcased at World Robot Summit (WRS2020) Industrial Robot Category - Assembly Challenge; 3rd place and special award from JSAI.
  • 2018 - 2021

    Osaka, Japan

    Ph.D. Student Researcher
    Osaka University & FUJIFILM Corporation
    Working with Prof Kensuke Harada and Fujifilm R&D to create motion planning solutions for industrial assembly tasks based on Reinforcement Learning techniques.
  • 2016 - 2017

    Bogota, Colombia

    Software Developer
    La Cadena Retail Solutions Ltda
    Design and development of an administrative web application. Backend Java 8 (Spring Boot, Security, Cloud, Rest), Microsoft SQL Server. Frontend JavaScript ES6, React JS, Redux, Material Design. Restful Webservices.
  • 2013 - 2016

    Bogota, Colombia

    Software Engineer
    Netlogistik
    Software design and implementation for supply chain and warehouse management systems (WMS RedPrairie / JDA). Design, implementation and integration of modules and customizations; multi-language (Java, C#, C, Groovy, SQL Server, Oracle SQL and PL/SQL). Consulting for design, configuration, implementation, and go-live with national and international clients.

Education

  • 2022 - 2022

    Osaka, Japan

    PhD
    Osaka University
    Engineering
    • Learning force control for contact-rich manipulations with position controlled robots.
    • Industrial assembly automation with ROS and MoveIt.
  • 2019 - 2019

    Osaka, Japan

    MEng
    Osaka University
    Intelligent Systems
    • Learning robot manipulation via Reinforcement Learning.
    • Learning force control for contact-rich manipulations with position controlled robots.
  • 2019 - 2019

    Chia, Colombia

    BSc
    University of La Sabana
    Computer Science
    • Thesis topic: Development of a fuzzy Logic-based system to monitor and control an algae bio-reactor on a PLC.

Grants

  • 2025
    Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

    Co-investigator from 2025 to 2028 of a research project funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

  • 2023
    Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

    Co-investigator from 2023 of a research project funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

  • 2025
    Body Integration Learning CREST
    Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)

    Co-investigator from 2025 to 2030 of a research project funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).

  • 2019
    Ph.D. scholarship
    Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)

    3 years of scholarship for a PhD degree.

  • 2017
    M.Sc. scholarship
    Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)

    2 years of scholarship for a M.Sc. degree.

Awards

  • 2024
    2nd Best Poster
    IROS 2024 Collecting, Managing, and Utilizing Data through embodied Robots workshop

  • 2024
    Best Poster
    ICRA 2024 Cooking Robotics workshop

  • 2024
    Best Video
    ICRA 2024 Cooking Robotics workshop

  • 2021
    3rd Place
    World Robot Summit 2020 Industrial Assembly Challenge

    Robotic competition to solve industrial assembly tasks.

  • 2021
    Japanese Society of Artificial Intelligence (JSAI) Award
    World Robot Summit 2020 Industrial Assembly Challenge

    Special award from the Japanese Society of Artificial Intelligence (JSAI).

  • 2019
    Best Oral Presentation (優秀講演賞) (SI2019)
    20th IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SI2019) (第20回計測自動制御学会システムインテグレーション部門講演会)

  • 2019
    Best Paper Award Finalist
    2019 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integrations (SII)

  • 2018
    Finalist of International Session Best Paper Award
    The 36th Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ)

Interests

Robot Manipulation: Contact-rich manipulation, Assembly Automation, Task and Motion Planning
Robot Learning: Reinforcement Learning, Multimodal Learning, Force/Tactile feedback control

Academic services

  • Program committee: IEEE/SICE SII2025 Special session - Reconfigurable Manipulation Robots; IEEE/SICE SII2025 Workshop - Reconfigurable Manipulation Robots; ICRA 2022 Workshop - Reinforcement Learning for Contact-Rich Manipulation
  • Technical Program Committee: IEEE ANDESCON 2020, Ecuador
  • Associate Editor: ICRA 2025, ICRA 2026
  • Conference Reviewer: RSS, ICRA, IROS, CASE, ETCM, ANDESCON
  • Journal Reviewer: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters; IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering; Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence; Experimental Techniques (EXTE)